


Long-Lost Letters (The Maimed Memoirs Remix)

by smilebackwards



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies)
Genre: Epistolary, M/M, Remix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-17
Updated: 2017-09-17
Packaged: 2018-12-22 00:53:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11956296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smilebackwards/pseuds/smilebackwards
Summary: Just words,Erik thinks bitterly. That’s all Charles ever is.





	Long-Lost Letters (The Maimed Memoirs Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Unforgotten](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unforgotten/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Long-Lost Letters](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3506495) by [Unforgotten](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unforgotten/pseuds/Unforgotten). 



Charles chases Erik around the globe without ever leaving Westchester.

 _I don’t understand_ Charles writes to Marseille. _Was that necessary_ to Seville. _Your new telekinetic could use some training on control_ to Istanbul.

After what even Erik considers a somewhat regrettable incident in Prague, huddled in a squalid loft on the outskirts of Leipzig, it’s: 

_Is this your definition of a ceasefire? Destroying two buildings? I suppose you’ll say it could have been two hundred. Yes, Erik, truly you showed great restraint. In the future, if you can kindly manage it, I’d prefer that you didn’t demolish the work of months of peace talks in one fell swoop._

_Just words,_ Erik thinks bitterly. That’s all Charles ever is. 

When Erik writes back, he doesn’t couch his vitriol in _would you kindly_ s.

At night, the curtains pulled closed against the moonlight, Erik holds Charles’ letters over the flame of a single candle and watches the pages blacken and curl into ash.

-

Erik sinks _is this what you hoped for_ into the Hudson, tears and tosses a dozen _why_ s to the crosswinds of the Grand Canyon. 

He remembers every word. 

-

Erik doesn’t get a letter in Shanghai. Not in Manila or Lagos or Cairo. He feels something in his chest go cold, a chill like the touch of a scalpel against skin.

Erik buys a postcard with a picture of the pyramids on the front. _Have you given up on me, Charles?_ he writes, sarcastic, in his severe script, letters tipped with the sharp peaks of Sütterlinschrift he learned as a child. _Am I your first truly lost cause?_

Three weeks later, in São Paulo, there’s an envelope waiting for Erik at the front desk of his hotel. The handwriting on the address doesn’t belong to Charles. 

Erik tears it open and takes a breath. There. There is Charles’ neat English copperplate, though rather noticeably less tidy than usual.

 _My old friend, do forgive me the tardy reply,_ Charles writes. _I’ve been ill._ The fingers of Erik’s right hand twitch into a fist. He forces them to relax. _I think you’re very lost, Erik, but I’ll never consider you a lost cause._

The next paragraph is different—the penmanship matching the address on the envelope—written in the clean, clear lines of scientific notation. McCoy then. 

_Ill is a kind term for it,_ Hank writes baldly. _You know how kind Charles has always been._

A shot across the bow. Erik releases a slow exhale. He pours three fingers of whiskey into a glass tumbler.

 _There was an attack on the school. Aimed at telepaths, Charles in particular,_ Hank continues. _I wouldn’t have even let him write this letter if leaving your latest charming missive unanswered wouldn’t have upset him more. He was in a medically induced coma for two weeks and is on bedrest for three._

He doesn’t say, _you weren’t here._ And maybe it’s because he doesn’t mean it. After all these years, Hank doesn’t expect it. _Charles_ doesn’t expect it. Erik’s presence and support are foreign things now.

But Erik still hears the accusation in his own head. _You weren’t there._ And, unless the status quo changes, he won’t be next time either. Erik crumples the letter in a fist and pours himself another drink.

 _My old friend,_ Charles always starts in salutation. My old friend.

Charles means it. For all his useless legs, all the angry children Erik peeled away from him and his so-called sanctuary one by one, every bitter and accusing epithet Erik has thrown at him—traitor, weak, naive, fool—Charles never relegated Erik to an enemy. When the government and their witch-hunters came to Westchester to question Charles about Erik, Charles didn’t so much as downgrade him to an acquaintance, never hid or softened their connection. 

My old friend.

Erik ought to be grateful for it, but it isn’t what he wants. All the time and bitterness between them and Erik still wants exactly what he’s always wanted: Charles’ love.

Erik has been drinking. He’s a maudlin drunk. That’s his excuse when he puts pen to paper and writes:

_My dear Charles._

No, he’s reversed it. It was worse even.

 _Charles, my dear,_ Erik thinks he wrote and mailed with an unsteady hand. _I’d like to see you. You said I’d always be welcome and I think you meant it. I don’t believe you’re right but perhaps you’re more right than I’ve been. Is that enough? Is it enough?_

-

The letter comes to Mexico City. 

_My dear friend._ Erik’s heart leaps to find himself not only old but still dear. 

_You have always been enough,_ Charles writes, cutting to the bone. _We’ve never had the luxury of a simple, correct path. History and our children will be our judges I suppose. I should like to see you too, Erik. It’s been a very long time._

 _Come home,_ it says, in all the spaces and gaps, the hollows and dips of the letters and between the lines, a plainly hidden message. 

Erik folds the letter into sixths and puts it in his pocket. He re-reads it so many times the creases start to wear thin and delicate. The ink fades from the press of his fingertips. 

Erik loses the letter somewhere between Nashville and Westchester, pursued by men in dark coats and glasses—henchmen for Stryker or Trask or one of the other enemies Erik was making while Charles was making friends. In the end, that too feels like a message. 

This is why Erik always left the dreaming to Charles. Logistics. Practicality. Cynicism. Those are Erik’s rightful domain. There’s no hope for home and happy endings after the choices Erik has made. He’ll always be hunted, and he’ll be damned if he puts Charles in the crosshairs with him. 

Erik gets off the train at Richardson and heads back south.

 _Forgive me,_ he writes to Charles, from the relative safety of Baton Rouge. After all, what’s one more thing for Charles to forgive?

-

From Baton Rouge, Erik moves to Dallas, then a small, dusty town just north of Reno. He climbs the concrete steps at his hotel and twists open the lock on his door without need for a key.

Erik gapes. 

Charles is in his room. His wheelchair is sidelong to the bed and he’s transferred himself to the mattress, propped up with pillows and watching Wheel of Fortune on the television.

“Hello, Erik,” Charles says. “An Ace Up Your Sleeve,” he adds to Vanna White and turns off the television. There’s an unopened envelope in his hands.

“I wrote you a letter,” Charles explains, “but then I thought perhaps you’d be more receptive to another form of communication.”

Erik removes his jacket and drapes it over a chair. “I’ve never been much for words unfortunately.” Charles looks good. No signs of lingering weakness that Hank’s words had planted in Erik’s worried mind.

“Yes, I know,” Charles says calmly, ripping the letter in half. “I don’t intend to convince you to come home by talking either.”

“How then?” Erik asks, curious. Charles is above mind control.

Charles beckons him closer, patting a space on the bed beside him. “Come home,” Charles breathes softly, taking Erik’s chin gently between his forefinger and thumb and pulling him down into a kiss.

Erik makes a sound he’ll never admit to later.

“Is that a yes?” Charles asks.

Erik kisses him quiet. It’s a yes.


End file.
